Where a knitter, spinner, dyer, weaver and general fiber artist shares whats on her mind.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

WIPs Wednesday

Now that I’m back on schedule we get to celebrate War of WIPs 2011 again on Wednesdays.

Not that I’m for war most of the time, but sometimes you have to declare war on things that need to get done. Like every weekend I fight the battle of the laundry.

This WIPs Wednesday is a special one because Felicity sent in a picture of her lovely Wavy Baktus using Mini Mochi in Intense Rainbow:

It’s the perfect project for self striping yarn as the pattern has vertical pattern stripes and it is really brought out by this yarn. Since she’s in Washington I think we can all agree it will be handy with the cold weather in the next couple months.

When she sent me this picture we got to talking about our WIPs and how we rarely knit or finish things for ourselves. We’re knitters but I bet no one would guess it because we have so few knits. When she brought up that she does not make herself many things it got me to thinking.

Knitters as a whole are usually known for their kindness and how giving they are (please note that I said usually and not always). We knit for everyone we know and I don’t think it’s purely for the love of the people, because many of us donate knitted items to shelters that we know no one at.

I think it’s the fact that we love to knit and it kind of overflows to the people around us because we see things we would love to knit, but we would never wear. However, because we are giving people, we tend to also put aside our own wants to knit for those that we love.

For example I’m more likely to knit a pattern I love for someone I love than a pattern I love for myself. I might love both patterns equally but that giving nature just comes out and I feel like my time is better spent working on it for someone else then myself. It also leads Felicity to knit a Scooby-Do sweater for her grandson, when she could finish the Wavy Baktus for herself much quicker. I finished the Girasole for my grandmother in 3 months (plus 3 months of it hibernating), but I never finished my Krista sweater for myself though I started it before the blanket.

Look around and see how many of your WIPs are for yourself and think about maybe spending one day a week working on these items. You’ll be surprised on how much you can get done by just dedicating an evening a week working on things for yourself. Maybe you’ll finish that sweater you dreamed about wearing to last Christmas’s parties, or maybe you’ll be like me and start to recover all your needles: